


don't let me drown

by onceuponawar



Category: Girl Meets World
Genre: F/F, Rilaya, i hope that's not too much spoiler for tags oh well, it's actually really sad whoops, it's okay though maya kisses her better, riley is depressed, riley/maya, this is based off the BMTH song, this is my first time posing on here help me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-07-29 20:46:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7698835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponawar/pseuds/onceuponawar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>riley's life is falling apart, and there's only one girl she wants to piece her together again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	don't let me drown

"whatever happened to her?"

"that gap year really messed her up."

"what has she done to her hair?"

"what's up with her clothes?"

riley picked up the pace, hands going deeper into her pockets and her shoulders hunching even farther in upon themselves. they don't know anything about you, she told herself, not anymore. they have no idea what you've been through, what you've suffered. but her backpack still felt more like a large boulder sitting on her shoulders, eternally weighing her down.

you know that you deserve it, what they say. everything that happened was all your fault anyway. everything you touch you destroy. you deserve it, you know you do. the small voice whispered in her head maliciously. she winced after every word, barely able to take the truth ringing through her ears. the voice also had told her once, right after the divorce, that the truth hurt, more than the lies-she agreed wholeheartedly.

"riley?!" the voice was deep, smooth and incredulous. had she reached the hallway? she barely remembered the walk there. 

"riley!" the same voice, a snap in front of her downward cast eyes. the voice in her head was laughing: you deserve it, you deserve it. over and over and over and over.

she looked up slowly, letting her hair fall into her eyes as she did. lucas friar. she knew his voice of course, she'd heard it mocking her in her sleep for the past twelve months, but she'd had a small sense of hope that it wouldn't be him. no such luck, she should've known.

"riley, what did you do to your hair?" of course, she thought, not a how are you or a what happened or why did you just leave without so much as a phone call. just a what did you do to your hair, obviously. looks always mattered more to him than personality, she should've known.

all the same, she moved to stroke it self consciously. was it really that awful? she knew it was different, but was it that so bad that two people within five minutes had questioned it like it was disgusting? what if she looked like a freak, what if people saw her-

"obviously, luke, she chopped her hair into a boy cut, dyed it a really dark brown and. . . added a fringe?" farkle appeared from nowhere and was the next to speak, he sounded just as confused as lucas. she recoiled slightly, the way he described it sounded just like the way her father had-almost disappointed. that was not a good thing. oh god, she should've known nothing would be different here. why did she even bother trying? everything was pointless, there was no escaping it. everywhere she went misery followed, by now she should've just been prepared for more disappointment. not happiness, there was no such thing.

"hey luke, farkle, who's th-riles?!" maya ran up behind the two boys, pecking lucas on the cheek before taking notice of her. she looked more beautiful than ever, her blonde hair had grown out few inches and she was no longer short by any means. the long, tan legs proved that much. her blue eyes shone brightly, a large, white toothed smile on her face. and with her perfectly curled hair up in a high ponytail and her long fingernails painted teal she looked like the cliche popular girl in every movie. which seemed to be the actual case, seeing as everyone seemed to hover around her like she was the center of everything.

"hey maya," she said, voice cracking as she did so. she was unsure of when maya hart, her best friend, her bad influence, her peaches, had began to intimidate her. all she knew was that right now she wanted to run and hide and never see the light of day again.

"riley!" maya rushed towards her and enveloped her in a hug so tight riley couldn't even move her arms to return it. the blonde's voice had become at least two octaves higher in the past year, she noted with a frown. that was not maya at all, the voice, the hair, the nails, the clothes, the- oh god. where those heels?! riley couldn't move for at least five seconds after her friend released her. what had she missed? did something she do make maya become this unlike herself?! what could have possibly happened to her tomboy, rebellious best friend? "you look. . . different."

"i look different?" riley couldn't even stop herself before the words came tumbling out of her mouth. she was incredulous. surely her completely black outfit and new haircut was nothing compared to this, this girly girl maya standing in front of her! right?!

"hey, don't talk to her like that, you em-matthews!" sarah yelled, coming between the two quickly. her hair was in a ponytail identical to maya's, her glasses nowhere to be seen, riley noticed. maybe it was a symbol of some sort. here i am, i am way different than i was a year ago! because this was completely unlike the sarah she'd left behind, the exact opposite almost. she squeezed her eyes shut, taking a shaky breath.

"l-lawrence." it was the first time she'd spoken it aloud and somehow it made everything, the past god awful year, so much more real. her parents, the great cory and topanga, were no longer together. she was no longer a matthews. her world was not the same, it was no longer her own. and it never would be again. if there had been another tear, one that had not been shed in the past twelve months, in her body it would have been rolling down her cheek.

"excuse me?" sarah sneered, in a mean girl kind of way that she would have never thought possible of shy, sweet sarah, crossing her arms over her chest even though it was impossible that she'd not heard her loud and clear. and yet the only thing riley noticed was that maya was making no move to remove her from their previously private reunion, or to stop her from doing anything, actually.

which is why, when sarah's open palm came crashing against her cheek, the brunette didn't so much as even utter a gasp. she stumbled back quite a few steps back, yes, but no noise of protest was made. the voice was still sing-songing in the back of her head: you deserve it, you deserve it, you deserve it, which made it impossible to even think of standing up for herself.

"hey, sarah, enough!" maya's voice was clipped, dismissive, annoyed, even. angry. she pushed the girl backwards by her shoulder and sarah retreated behind her obediently. riley felt dizzy, though not from the slap she'd just taken. she had body guards protecting her. when had maya hart ever not been able to protect herself?

"riley-"

she didn't even get a chance to finish whatever lame apology she was abut to spit out. riley shoved past her, rage filling her, her emotions running rampant, the bell ringing in perfect time with her exit.

it had been a month, maybe two, after the divorce that riley had realized that the feelings she had toward her best friend were not as platonic as she'd been lying to herself about for the past four years. the first few months after it happened and she had moved in with her mother she had been forced to search through her feelings over and over again. at the time she'd been searching for anything she'd missed before she found the divorce papers laying on the kitchen counter, but inevitably all the lies, about her love life and sexuality, had come forward to taunt her even further in that horrid time. and, honestly, even though she had been very good at living a lie, a lot had slipped through her cracks, looking back. the way she had sometimes stared for a little too long, how they could barely be in the same room without them touching in some way, the way their "i love you"s were infinitely more intimate than those of people who were "just friends". none of it mattered now though, because the maya riley had been slowly falling in love with for the past nine years was not the same maya she had just encountered.

she strutted into the classroom, throwing her books on the desk furthest in the back, too overrun with emotions to even take in who's class she was in. and, hell, if she'd had a bad morning thus far, then that was only the tip of the iceberg.

"morning, matthews." one kid said after the other as they all filed into the classroom. riley felt sick to her stomach, but there was no escape now. not without a class full off children mocking her at least. maya and lucas were the last two to walk in, both red faced as if they'd been fighting. she dropped further down in her seat.

"today we're talking about true love. what is it?" mr. matthews wrote the topic in the board and smiled that oh-so-friendly smile of his, but riley was disgusted. apparently he hadn't stopped pandering to his favorite student's problem of the week, definitely not by the way he was eyeing maya and lucas. she just hadn't noticed how annoying it was until now.

"it doesn't exist, sir," farkle piped up, ever prepared to give a perfect response. something that used to make her smile, but now it only filled her with a certain nostalgia she wasn't in the mood to have piled on top of everything else. "true love is just a fragment of all of our imaginations. nothing is ever truly pure, just like no line is ever truly straight."

"on the contrary farkle, i believe in true love. i've felt it."

riley gave an involuntary loud snort, causing everyone to turn towards her expectantly. she turned red at the sudden attention and the voice in her head was screaming at her that she was a moron to even open her mouth again, but she continued anyway. "with who? because it sure as hell wasn't my mother."

"now ri-miss lawrence, why would you say that?" he began to stutter, stumbling over her name.

she barked another laugh, though this time is was significantly less confident. saying this was tearing out every stitch she'd used to sew the wounds in her heart back together. "that is exactly the reason why! your daughter doesn't even share your last name anymore because you don't know what true love is! your children are torn to pieces because you took true love for granted!" she didn't remember when she had stood up, beginning to lean over her desk, yelling in the direction of a man she no longer considered father. "don't talk to me about true love cory matthews! because unless you consider the filthy act of adultery you committed with your precious lauren true then you have no fucking idea!"

silence. absolute, utter, complete silence. she shivered. this total absence of sound was exactly like the nights of the past year. as she remembered those quiet late hours that lead into even more silent mornings she tensed, horrid memories flooding in unwillingly. and just like that every ounce of confidence, of self worth, of hatred, of hope, of happiness drained from her body. there was just nothing left. she was an empty shell of the riley matthews she used to be. she knew it, everyone knew it.

so she stood up, never once making eye contact with anyone, walked towards the door and grasped the freezing handle. she had just enough vengeance left in her to whisper, so only her father could hear: "i hope you know it destroyed her, too."

and she slammed the door behind her. no one following, no one whispering a word.

riley ran and ran and ran and ran and ran until she could no longer feel her feet or know where she was going. when she tried to stop, the image of her mother's pitiful, cripplingly sad face after finding her father in bed with another woman filled her consciousness and she pressed forward, needing as much distance as possible between her and him.

she remembered, about a week after her mother had explained the cheating and the divorce to her, when the voice showed up. at first it was small, very faint, whispers. things that made her feel bad, yes, but never anything extreme. then, after the first month in full custody of her mom where the great topanga lawrence cried herself to sleep every night and barely ever spoke during the days, it got louder. screaming that it was all her fault that her mother was this way, that she could've done something to stop all this, that is was all her fault, that she was the reason her family was in shambles.

and that had been when she'd tried to kill herself. 

she felt like nothing, like she was the scum that was at the bottom of the pond, all the time. her mother never spoke to her, if she did it was in violent choked sobs. she didn't have her father there to teach a lesson and make it better. her brother wasn't there to cuddle her, tell her that she was worth it, that she was the best big sister ever. she had no friends to comfort her, to pick her back up like they'd always done. everyone at her new, private school thought she was a freak and refused to talk to her. she had no one left to vent these awful feelings to. so she had vented them on herself instead. 

it was scary to riley that, when the time came that she wanted to end it all, she knew exactly how she wanted it done. like it was just a subconscious, obvious decision that had been building over so much time. so that thursday, as soon as she walked in the door after school, she retreated to her mother's medicine cabinet. she would hate for it to be bloody and make more of a mess for everyone. it was simple: she threw as many pills as possible in her mouth and eventually her world to faded to black. it had been just her rotten luck that her mom had found her before it was too late to save what was left of her beating heart. she'd woken up in a hospital two days later, cursing everything that these people wouldn't just let her do what she wanted with her life. it wasn't their suffering after all. 

even now she cursed them, as she ran out the school's back doors and into a small courtyard with thick and heavy tears blurring her vision. the voice continued to mock: you deserve it, you deserve it, you deserve it. she sat like that for a long time, collapsed in the dewy grass on her knees, crying over it all: her family, her friends, maya. stupid, stupid, stupid, maya. and just like she'd heard riley's internal cries, a giant tan blur with blonde hair came into view 

"riley," maya said, voice thick with emotion, kneeling on the ground in front of her best friend, pulling her in close.

"fuck off," riley replied viciously, shoving her away. no one got to see her so deteriorated, no one got to comfort her. she didn't deserve it.

"no i won't 'fuck off'! come here." maya neared her once again, arms wide. riley put one finger on her soft pink lips. 

"if you do i'll scream rape as loud as i can. don't test me, hart." the blonde believed her, her face, even though it was wet with tears, was completely relaxed. something maya had begun to know as her tell. so she backed up six small steps and sat cross legged in the grass.

"he locked up the bay window, you know. from the inside." riley lifted her head and stared at maya in astonishment. she knew she was falling her friend's trap of 'get her attention' but she didn't care. when she and her mother had moved to a new apartment the bay window had stayed with auggie and her father, something she had been beyond crushed about. at many points of the last year all she's wanted was the window's sense of security (though she figured later it was less the window itself and more maya in the window). her best friend knew she'd give anything to know how their safe place was doing. "and for so long i thought you were locking me out, until i realized the sheets on the bed weren't yours and the photos on the wall where stock. i was terrified, riles. i thought you left me forever."

that pushed her over the edge. riley flung herself at the blonde, not listening to the voice or even thinking twice before she did so. they both toppled back onto the grass, she on top and maya on the bottom. when she thought of all the things that had drained from her body in the instant she thought of those dark, suicidal nights, her love for her best friend was not one. it might as well have been a part of her shell by now, everything else could drain from her and that unconditional love would still be hardwired into her very core. maybe that was why she was more aware of their current position than maya was, because maya could pass this all of as friendly in her own straight-as-a-pencil brain. riley could not.

"what did you do?" she whispered intensely, staring into the blonde's clouded blue eyes. 

"i stopped going," maya said, biting her lip. her eyes went from clouded to teary. "i would go and i would sit and i would wait for the window to open and your face to pop through like nothing had changed. you never showed up. no one would tell me what was going on, riley, i thought you had just abandoned me, so i stopped going. after that i changed. you weren't there to lead the school, to make them happy. so i took the job, or tried to. i became what they wanted me to be." her eyes drifted from the ground back up into riley's dark, intense stare. "divorce?"

she nodded. "peaches, it was so awful-"

"it's okay," she murmured. "i'll make sure it's okay for the rest of time." she grasped riley's wrist tightly for reinforcement as she had done many times before, but this time it caused the brunette to violently flinch. maya's brow furrowed in confusion. "what? are you okay?"

riley's eyes went wide and she nodded fiercely, pulling herself off of her best friend quickly. if the blonde girl had not been concerned before, she certainly was now. this wasn't riley.

"riley, give me your arm."

the tears, which had just begun to dry, started dripping from her puffy eyes again. she shook her head, teeth digging into her lower lip, cradling her arm.

"riley give me your arm!" maya lurched towards her, knowing she was pushing it, but doing it anyway and yanking down the sleeve of her black knit jacket. all across her pale arm were even whiter scars, some more recent looking, some older. every one in perfectly straight lines all the way down her forearm. painfully obviously self inflicted.

riley's face scrunched up in a way that reminded her of in middle school when she had been bullied just for being unique. fat tears were rolling down her cheeks quickly, her words full of pain when she spoke.

"i-it was so awful, maya-"

maya cut her off again by pulling the brunette's scar covered forearm up to her lips. at first riley protested, but then fell silent as, slowly, maya kissed every single line across the skin, all the way up to her elbow. riley's skin was soft against her chapped lips, just like she'd always expected. maya couldn't bring herself to stop there. she continued kissing up her upper arm. when she hit riley's neck the girl gave a loud gasp, but never broke her stare trained on maya's face. it was a good thing too, because the blonde didn't stop. if it were truly up to her, she probably never would have.

neck.

"promise me we'll always be together."

jawline.

"we will always be together."

chin.

"then i'll use that forever to piece you back together again, riley matthews, i swear it."

lips.

"then it's good."


End file.
